Christmas Hugs
by Kimimela Maeve
Summary: Short James&Lily (their Hogwarts days) Christmas story.


"Merry Christmas everyone!" The excited shout was accompanied by tinkling bells and running footsteps. A moment later a fast moving ball in the traditional Christmas colours of red and green went catapulting right into the outstretched arms of Sirius Black. With a laugh he twirled the giggling ball, which turned out to be none other than Lily Evans, around the Gryffindor common room. 

"Merry Christmas to you too!" Sirius finally set Lily down, glancing at James Potter with twinkling eyes as he did so. Lily, however, was busy hugging her other friends, her bell earrings tinkling all the while. 

James stood off to the side, smiling at the sight Lily made. She was now chatting excitedly to a few of the other girls, making no move to hug him also. 'Maybe she didn't see me', James thought, slightly hurt at being ignored. 'Well then I'll just have to take matters into my own hands. Can't be missing out on Lily-hugs, now can I?'

Lily had her back to James, and so can be excused for missing the rather obvious, tall teen creeping up behind her. She discovered him with a squeal, however, when he picked her up and swung her around in his arms.

"James, _what_ are you _doing_?!" James finally came to a halt, and gave her a charming smile in answer to her question.

"You seemed to be in a hugging mood," he said, by way of explanation.

"Well great, you've had your hug. Now put me down!" You see, dear readers, its not that Lily didn't like being held in the arms of the tall, dark floppy haired, gorgeous brown eyed Quidditch seeker extraordinaire. No, no, quite the opposite, actually. She didn't like, however, the way her stomach felt as if it contained hyper butterflies, and the way her hands attempted to create lakes of sweat whenever James touched her, or got near her, for that matter.

James wasn't in much of a better state, but he didn't want to let go of her just yet. His mind raced to get a way to keep her there a little longer, and he wasn't disappointed when the idea finally came to him. It was perfect. 

"Only if you kiss me," he said, grinning lopsidedly. He seemed to be calm enough as he said it, yet inside his organs had all stopped, waiting for her response with a mixture of dread and nervous excitement. Either way he would win – if she agreed, he'd get a kiss, and if she refused, he could still hold her.

"WHAT?!" Lily was shocked, judging by her scream. She would have gladly complied, of course, if it weren't for a small matter of her-having-no-idea-whether-James-liked-her-that-way-or-not-and-wasn't-going-to-confess-her-feelings-if-he-wasn't-going-to-do-so-first-or-unless-she-had-hard-evidence-that-he-returned-her-feelings. You know the stubborn idea, it makes an appearance in most people's lives.

Looking at James, however, Lily discovered that he was serious – he wasn't putting her down unless she kissed him. Panic was just staring to make itself comfortable within Lily, when suddenly it occurred to her – he didn't say _where_. Ah, such a small detail, yet it would save Lily.

"Fine", she said to an expectant James, before leaning in to his cheek. James saw what she was doing, however, and without even thinking twisted his head around so her lips collided with his.

She would have pulled back instantly, if it weren't for the fact that it felt so _good_. Also, the fact that James made the move in the first place, and didn't seem to intend on ending the kiss anytime soon, made the idea that he liked her back very credible. So instead she simply enjoyed the kiss.

The two finally pulled apart when it penetrated their deliriously happy brains that the loud noise they heard wasn't their racing hearts, but clapping. Dazedly they glanced around the common room, discovering that everyone present was applauding and whistling, with a few shouts of "finally!" or words along those lines.

Sirius stepped forward from the crowd, and clapped James on the shoulder. "I didn't know you had it in you! I thought it would be up to me to get the two of you together… now I need a new pair to use the spelled mistletoe on…" Sirius turned away from them, and got a gleam in his eye as he spotted Remus innocently chatting with a few girls.

Lily and James were left on their own as people started exchanging gifts and Sirius got to work on his matchmaking scheme. Hesitantly Lily broke the tense silence between them, "Does that mean you like me?"

"What do you think?" he replied with a happy grin. Lily grinned back, and they promptly continued kissing.

Author's Notes: Well would you look at that. I just finished my very first fanfic. checks watch hmmm… it didn't take very long… maybe I'll do this more often! And hopefully my writing will improve with time, helped along by _constructive_ criticism from dear readers looks meaningfully at the review button in the bottom left hand corner

I hope you all enjoyed that, and I hope you all have a very merry and blessed Christmas!! God bless you all!


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